


Neither an End Nor a Beginning

by ViciousRhythm



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Traditions, each chapter will be one holiday, the fun of being nobility in Whitestone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:16:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViciousRhythm/pseuds/ViciousRhythm
Summary: A year's worth of holidays in Whitestone. The ways in which we give thanks, remember the old, and welcome the new.





	1. Winter's Crest

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this tumblr post](http://tanoraqui.tumblr.com/post/154750277362/most-of-the-weird-old-traditions-of-whitestone-are) discussing Whitestone traditions.

The last time Vex spent Winter’s Crest in Whitestone, there were far fewer people around to celebrate, as well as a missing organization to the nobility - namely Percy and Cassandra. The festival had of course been wonderful, but it had also had the flavor of a gathering thrown together by people grasping at scraps of happiness after too long without. It’s an entirely different day this year, for a few reasons. For one, Vex wakes up in very different circumstances; burrowed as far into the warmth of Percy’s arms as she can possibly get instead of waking to the scratchy comfort of Trinket’s fur. Her day also begins a whole hell of a lot earlier than it had before, even earlier than Vex usually wakes.

Percy wakes up as ungracefully as he usually does when there is a brisk knock on their door, choking on an inhale before he groans and buries his face so far in Vex’s hair she can feel his annoyed sigh against the nape of her neck. He’d explained to Vex already that there would be dawn prayers to attend at Pelor’s temple this morning, thus the fact they’ve been awoken while it’s still full dark. That doesn’t mean either of them is particularly thrilled about the wake up call.

“Are you sure you have to be a lord today?” Vex grumbles, face half in her pillow, tucking her feet under Percy’s calves for the additional warmth.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Percy gets out, his words slurred with sleep. “I really only have to four times a year. Five, maybe.”

“Are all Whitestone holidays this early when there’s no vampires?”

“Just this and one more.” Despite his being absolutely not a morning person, Percy did spend nearly twenty years of his life attending this particular ritual. His grip around Vex’s waist squeezes briefly before he pulls away, shifting the bedcovers down as he leaves the bed. Vex curls further into them, tugging the blanket up to her chin with a noise of protest.

“The other one had better not be so damn  _ cold _ ,” she says waspishly. Only barely awake, Percy grimaces at her, interrupting his response with a yawn.

“Not so - so cold, but more muddy,” he says. There is a louder and more insistent knock on the door, which Percy attends to, assuring the servant standing there that they are awake while Vex negotiates herself out of bed and into the cold air. As a baroness in her own right, an adventurer and dragonslayer with an earned fortune to her name, Vex has enough clothing that she can put together something that both befits her station and assures she won’t freeze to death in the snow. Getting dressed is a task when the air itself is this cold, however, which is why Vex hates castles, with their chilly stones. Tapestries can only do so much.

By the time they leave their room, she and Percy are both bundled in enough layers to ward off the chill, but she still leans on him because Percy is both more accustomed to the cold and somehow a perpetual source of body heat. They find Cassandra waiting for them where the kitchen splits from the hall, looking far too awake, but blessedly holding a pair of mugs that can only contain coffee.

“You look disturbingly alert,” Percy comments, taking the offered coffee.

“I haven’t slept,” Cassandra says. Considering his own sleeping habits, Vex has to take a swallow of coffee to keep herself from commenting on the hypocrisy of Percy’s disapproving look. Judging by the single eyebrow Cassandra lifts in his direction, she feels similarly about Percy’s right to judge anyone else’s sleep schedule.

“I’ll take a nap once we’re done for the morning,” Cassandra says, conciliatory. “I’m not needed for any of the afternoon festivities.”

The siblings continue bickering, making Vex miss Vax sharply for a moment. Technically, he’s not far to miss, only asleep upstairs, but Vex had insisted he didn’t need to wake up early with them. He’s not beholden to the responsibilities of nobility, after all. Percy and Cassandra lead the way to the temple, Vex’s arm looped through Percy’s as they trudge through the snow. The new priest is nearly a stranger to Vex, though Cassandra knows him and Percy has a passing familiarity, so she leaves them to converse at the front of the temple while Vex takes a seat in the front row.

“Wake up, dear.” She must have dozed, because she wakes to Percy’s fingers gentle on the side of her face as she blinks rapidly. People have begun filtering in, including the rest of Vox Machina, looking sleepy for the most part. Keyleth is awake enough to be functional, though the rest of them are barely awake - not even that in Scanlan’s case, where he’s slumped and open-mouthed against a pew.

The actual ceremony takes what feels like forever and a day, but is realistically closer to two hours. Dawn breaks fairly near the beginning, and Vex gets more and more annoyed the longer it drags on after the sun has crested over the horizon. Percy takes a seat beside her after his third pronouncement of faith at the head of the temple, immediately spotting the tell-tale signs of Vex’s restlessness.

“How can prayers possibly take this long?” she hisses, fingers tapping on her thigh. “Dawn’s already passed an  _ hour _ ago, I think Pelor’s moved on by now.”

“It’s nearly done,” Percy assures in an equally hushed voice, placing his hand over hers to still her fidgeting. He’s right, which is only fair given he’s done this many times before. Toward the end, the priest gestures for all of the nobility to stand and come forward to the front of the temple. Each of them is anointed with holy oil, asked to take oaths to protect the land and the people in the coming year, and then blessed.

“I didn’t even  _ do _ anything,” Vex complains once they’re out of earshot of the priest and most of the gathered worshippers. “Not until the very end at least. What did we have to wake up so early for?”

“Tradition, mostly,” Percy says blithely. Now that the sun has risen, it’s considerably warmer, so Vex doesn’t have a ready excuse to hang on Percy’s arm on the walk back. There’s also a considerable amount of distraction as they walk, her friends present and awake and the town setting up the more familiar stalls and decorations and festivities.

With their extra hours of sleep, everyone else fares much better than Percy and Vex, and especially Cassandra who - true to her word - retreated back to the castle as soon as her part was over. There are some of the same activities as the last Winter's Crest, though all but Grog decline the pie eating contest this time. Keyleth and Vex discover a stall where one can make molasses candy in fresh snow and spend a few minutes trying to make Trinket-shaped candies with varied success. Scanlan, having talked Kaylie into spending the holiday in Whitestone, joins in with the larger group of musicians, eventually getting chased away by Keeper Yennin when the songs get a little bit too bawdy. He does recite his epic Resident Evil with a certain dramatic flair before Scanlan is forcibly removed from the stage to the sound of applause. 

Vex and Percy orbit around each other, even as they drift between everyone else throughout the morning. The pair of them put in a good effort of enjoying the day, but Vax gets the opportunity to pelt them with a snowball each when they fall asleep in the middle of the proceedings, missing Grog's vindication during the arm wrestling contest entirely. Percy gets knocked nearly out of his seat with the surprise of it, though Vex manages to cobble together enough wits and aim to chuck one back at her brother. A small snowball fight ensues, which Keyleth wins by cheating outrageously with a control water spell. 

“Go sleep it off, sister,” Vax says when they’ve all been thoroughly soaked with melting snow and it still hasn’t managed to wake her up entirely. She takes his advice, kissing her brother on the cheek and bidding the rest of their group a happy Winter’s Crest before taking Percy with her for a well-deserved nap. There will be time still for celebrating in the evening, but Vex is frankly exhausted and shucks out of her clothes post haste once they’ve made it into their room.

“Oh, bed,” Vex moans, hugging her pillow gratefully. “I’m so sorry I left you.”

Percy snorts a laugh where he’s still undressing. He’s never quite as fast as she is with it, always needing to fold everything and set it aside properly, but he does catch up, slipping into bed beside her. Vex immediately shoves her cold feet between his calves, making Percy yelp and squirm away from her. She wraps her arms around his chest and hangs on until they reach a temperature equilibrium and settle against each other more comfortably.

“The nap is a tradition, too, of course,” Percy mutters as they drift somewhere between asleep and awake. Vex hums agreeably into his shoulder, blindly finding his wrist to circle with her fingers in a loose hold for the simple comfort of touch. “I find it’s like most traditions,” he goes on, mumbling in that absently philosophical way of his, “it’s better when shared.”


	2. Spring Equinox

Vex is no Keyleth, that’s for sure, but there’s still something about growing things that calls to her, even if it will never be at the depth that a druid can achieve. Of course, Vex’s tastes also fall more toward the wild growth of forests and the chaotic, impartial life that makes its way in the mountains. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate the same small miracles in sowing fields.

When she was born, Vex was the daughter of a seamstress and there were plenty of farmers and open fields which were strictly not to be played in for fear of destroying future crops. Obviously, she and Vax only sometimes paid attention to such orders and were more than once shooed out of what appeared to be a simple muddy field, only to find it filled with swaying rows of grain within a matter of months. The chilly mornings of planting were always a phenomenon endured by the twins’ scant few friends, while Vex and Vax rose at the hours of merchants and shopkeepers. Who would have thought that a seamstress’s daughter would be rising before the dawn on another holy day to help plant the first seeds of her city, the one she’s tied to by so many things now.

The spring equinox is a whole hell of a lot less formal than what Vex had to put up with for Winter’s Crest. She was also treated to a visit from her brother and Keyleth, who will be participating in their own ways in today’s ceremonies. Well, not Vax, really. Keyleth doesn’t have any sort of traditionally standard role in Whitestone’s equinox, but it’s been only a year since the blight on the land was gotten rid of, and they could stand to have the help of a plant growth spell or two.  
For now, Keyleth stands waiting with everyone else for Percy and Cassandra to sow the first seeds. The pair of them stand side by side a step behind Keeper Yennen, Pelor’s priest a half-step before him and finishing off a blessing for the earth. The handful of dirt is scattered as soon as he’s done, rich dark brown and looser than the soil on which they stand. That soil is a bit closer to mud than some might like, in fact.

It does make it easy for the siblings to kneel and dig their own small furrows to plant the seeds that have been saved from last year’s harvest. Heirlooms from the same stock that has been used in Whitestone for generations, Percy had told her, further back than he can be sure of, though Percy of course doubts that the original seeds were actually gifts from Pelor himself. Still, it’s the structure of the traditions that matter more than the truth of their origins. And it’s more than a little amusing to see Percy kneeling in the dirt at dawn and trying not to look as though he hates it.

Vex kneels beside him as soon as his handful of seeds are covered, pushing her fingers through the soft earth and depositing her own seeds in the shallow trough - they’ll be corn one day, hopefully. Keyleth sinks down beside them after that, while some of the more prominent farmers and heads of households join them in the dirt, burying their own offerings. Vex’s hand shifts closer to Percy’s, covered by Keyleth’s slim fingers a moment later, and they can all three feel the slight pulse of magic from her, an oddly green aftertaste as a cluster of tiny, fragile sprouts push through the soil at almost alarming speeds.

“Just a little something to get them started,” Keyleth says with a poorly-executed wink and an endearingly genuine smile. She leaves them after that, walking among the now active crowd as people set about sowing the fields in the rising sun. It’s only just crested the tops of the Alabaster Sierras, so that when Vex turns to look at him, Percy has the rose-colored light of sunrise caught in his pale hair and glinting off his glasses.

“Wonderfully done, darling,” she tells him with a grin. “You don’t even look overly miserable.”

“In fairness, I haven’t stood up yet,” he grouses back. “I can already feel mud sticking to my knees, and heaven forbid I trip in this mess. What a lordly sight that would be.”

“It might be good for you.” Vex does give him a hand up, though, the pair of them using each other as leverage to stand. Percy offers a hand to Cassandra once he’s stable, and the resemblance is uncanny when the de Rolos both look down at the dirt smeared over their clothes and grimace.

“I think there’s been quite enough of nobility in various states of dishevelment,” Cassandra says. “You all have a terrible habit of coming back to Whitestone covered in all sorts of unpleasantness. A little dirt won’t matter much, I’d think.”

“Well, yes,” Percy says, “but we earned that filth and it was a sign of victory. Very different situations.”

“Obviously,” Cassandra says flatly. With that, she pats her brother on the arm and tromps off, the sight a lot less regal than most things Cassandra does. Vex is still somewhat unused to seeing Percy’s sister in leggings rather than dresses, despite the fact that Cassandra regularly deigns to train with Vex to keep her combat skills sharp - just in case. Seeing the young woman slog through mud only enhances the strangeness of the wardrobe change by transforming Cassandra into a dirt-covered anybody, only distinguishable by her two-toned hair and her impeccable posture.

“She hates this almost as much as you do, doesn’t she?” Vex asks when Cassandra is out of earshot.

“Possibly more,” Percy says, pausing to mutter a curse at a particularly sticky patch of mud while Vex drags him further down the rows to keep planting. “Cassandra never was keen on outdoor activity. I’ve at least become accustomed to it via sleeping on the ground every so often.”

“You great outdoorsman, you,” Vex teases, and perhaps if Percy were less dignified, he might stick his tongue out at her. The spirit of such an action is written all over his face, but Vex just huffs a laugh and holds out her hand for new kernels, going to one knee in the dirt. Percy hands them over easily enough, not bothering to bluster through an insistence that he can do this as well as Vex can. He really can’t, and he obviously doesn’t want to.

They split up over the morning, Vex staying with the row vegetables while Percy gets pulled away to a nearby field destined to house wheat. It’s a much better place for him, where he can stay standing and just scatter seeds like he has any idea what he’s doing. With how moisture-rich the soil is, wheat is a much more forgiving crop and will make up for Percy’s inexperience.

“He’s never really had the patience for things like gardening,” Keyleth muses, unbothered as they watch Percy try to extract himself where he’s sunk nearly past the ankle from standing in one place too long. “Or, well, I mean, farming in this case.”

“Not as such,” Vex agrees. Percy has a much too, ha, explosive personality to really enjoy an activity where the rewards come only at the cost of sedentary weeks and months. “But he’s gotten better,” Vex goes on, stretching and enjoying the pleasant warmth of the sun on slightly sore muscles. “Percy occasionally understands how precious a thing can be when you’re willing to wait for it.”

Keyleth hums thoughtfully. “You’re not going to be able to stick around much longer, are you? Either of you.”

“Oh, good lord, no,” Vex admits easily. “Cassandra’s going to kick Percy out herself soon enough just to keep him from driving her crazy. The Chambers can only take so much restless fidgeting, even if it was about time Percy pulled some of his weight around here. We’re talking about setting up ties with neighboring cities. Whitestone will need ambassadors, you know.”


End file.
